I would like to share information with you regarding a recent recognition we received from the Minnesota Department of Education.

This past week, our school was honored to learn that our MCA scores from last spring’s assessment earned us “Reward” status with the Minnesota Department of Education. What this means is that Crosslake Community School students ranked in the top 15 percent of schools delivering Title I services throughout the state of Minnesota.

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I congratulate our students and staff on their hard work in preparation and completion of these tests. Their efforts are paying off with great results!

In addition to academic excellence, character development is an important component of our curriculum at our school. As a way of reminder, the acronym KIDS stands for Kindness, Integrity, Discipline and Service, four pillars of character we focus on throughout the course of the year.

Each month, we focus our attention on a different element of character development. In September, our focus was on Kindness. This month, our emphasis is on Integrity, which I define for our students as “doing the right thing, even if no one else is watching.”

During the school day, our staff members are on the lookout for students demonstrating integrity and other positive behaviors and are rewarding them with “tickets” that can be exchanged at a later time for prizes and other recognition.

I am very proud of our students and the many ways they are working to help each other out, whether it is assisting with our pumpkin harvest during the first week of October or our older students helping our younger ones in the lunch room. It is very gratifying to see our kids looking out for one another!

I also want to thank so many of you who have already purchased pumpkins from our school. These pumpkins were planted by our students, grown with support from the Dahlke family, harvested by our students, and arranged and marketed by our parent volunteers and PTO members. We have sold many pumpkins and there are plenty more to be sold. We greatly appreciate your support!

I continue to be amazed by the support that flows into our school from the community. Thank you so much for your encouragement in the work we do. You have no idea how good it feels to have a community support the students and staff the way you do. We look forward for opportunities to serve and impact our community in a positive way!